Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

The Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is a small Baroque building on Čajkovského street in Prague's Žižkov district, better known today as a concert venue than a place of worship. For anyone exploring Žižkov beyond its usual pubs and viewpoints, it's a quietly interesting stop that shows how the city's former sacred buildings have been given new lives.

Why was the church built here?

Construction ran from 1717 to 1719, a direct response to the plague epidemic that struck Prague between 1713 and 1716. The site itself already carried grim history: it was the location of a New Town plague cemetery opened in 1680, used to bury victims of earlier outbreaks. Building a votive church on such ground was a common Prague pattern after epidemics — a way of marking the site and asking for protection against future waves of disease.

What does the building actually look like?

The architecture is Baroque but modest in scale: a single-nave structure covered by a barrel vault, without the elaborate ornamentation found on Prague's larger churches from the same era. The most distinctive surviving feature is the western portal, carved from sandstone, with a Latin dedication inscription cut into its tympanum — one of the clearest remaining signs of the building's original religious purpose.

Why is it a concert hall instead of an active church?

The building stopped functioning as a parish church at the start of the 20th century, but the real transformation came later. Starting in 1977, it underwent a major reconstruction that took seven years to complete. The former nave was converted into a concert hall, and a new building housing the Atrium exhibition space was added alongside the Baroque structure. Together they now form a cultural complex known as Atrium na Žižkově, hosting concerts, performances, and smaller-scale events.

What's worth noticing when you're there?

Despite its secular use, the building's outline still reads clearly as Baroque — the single-nave layout, window proportions, and the sandstone portal all survived the 1970s–80s reconstruction intact. It's a useful example of adaptive reuse done without erasing the past: rather than demolishing the historic shell, the architects added new function next to it, keeping the original structure legible.

Frequently asked questions

Can you visit the church like a typical place of worship? Not really — the building operates as the Atrium na Žižkově concert and exhibition venue, so access is mostly tied to specific cultural events rather than open, casual sightseeing.

Why was this particular spot chosen for the church? The land had previously served as a New Town plague cemetery, established in 1680 for epidemic victims. Building the church there after the 1713–1716 plague outbreak was meant as a votive gesture tied directly to that history.

What survived from the original Baroque structure after the 1977–1984 reconstruction? The single-nave, barrel-vaulted body and the sandstone western portal with its Latin inscription remain; the rest of the interior was adapted for concert use.

How do you get there? The church stands on Čajkovského street in Žižkov, in a quiet residential stretch of the district, within easy walking distance of Žižkov's more central attractions.